Born: 9 February 1839, United States
Died: 10 August 1923
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Laura Catherine Redden
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Deaf women fought for the right to vote
Joan Marie Naturale, Rochester Institute of Technology
If Susan B. Anthony had a deaf sister, everyone would know that deaf suffragists fought tirelessly for expanding women’s right to vote, right alongside Anthony herself. Everyone would know deaf suffragists contributed to women’s emancipation in the United States and Britain and that they lived bold lives.
As a researcher of deaf history, including deaf women’s history, I work to illuminate the often hidden history of deaf people and their unique contributions to the world. I have unearthed historical information about deaf women suffragists and assembled it into an online collection chronicling what is known – so far – about these women and their lives.
Despite harsh, discriminatory conditions, low pay and lack of recognition, countless deaf women have fought with brilliance and dedication for personal and professional recognition, including for the right to vote.
A silent voice in print
Laura Redden Searing, born in 1840, was a gifted American poet, newspaper reporter and writer – often using the male pseudonym Howard Glyndon so her work would be taken more seriously. Deafened by illness as a child, she entered the Missouri School for the Deaf when she was 15 years old and learned sign language, graduating in 1858, writing an address and “farewell poem” that was published in the American Annals of the Deaf.
When communicating with nonsigners, she wrote with a pencil and pad – with which she conducted countless interviews over many years as a reporter and writer.
In 1860, Searing became the earliest deaf woman journalist, writing for the St. Louis Republican, whose editors sent her to Washington in September 1861. There, she cultivated friendships with prominent leaders and interviewed Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, soldiers on the battlefield, and President Abraham Lincoln. She also met future Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, and taught him fingerspelling, a manual alphabet that is used in sign language.
When the Civil War ended in 1865, she traveled to Europe and picked up reading and writing in French, German, Spanish and Italian. She continued writing news stories for the St. Louis Republican and The New York Times. Returning to the United States in 1870, Searing wrote on a wide variety of topics for the New York Evening Mail and other newspapers and magazines. Searing had a literary circle of admiring friends who supported her work. She also contributed articles and poems to the popular national Silent Worker newspaper, published by the New Jersey School for the Deaf.
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She was a feminist who wrote about women’s issues such as unequal pay and women’s sexuality. She also explained her support for an 1872 campaign for women’s right to vote with an analogy to the freeing of the slaves after the Civil War:
“I believe I am called upon to sign this petition in conformation with that clause of our constitution which recognizes the equal rights of all human beings of lawful age and sound mind without regard to sex, color, or social condition. Having decided that black people do not belong to white ones, why not go a step farther and decide that women do not belong to men unless the proprietorship be recognized as mutual?”
In 1981, Searing was dubbed “the first deaf women’s libber” by Robert F. Panara, the first deaf professor of Deaf Studies at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, because of her pioneering work in the journalism field and her fierce independence as a woman who did not accept restrictions, nor follow expected traditions.
Joan Marie Naturale, Reference Librarian, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology Libraries, Rochester Institute of Technology